this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2024
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That's excruciating to read. Why would someone take an hour to read this as an answer to that comment? Only near the end does it conclude the whataboutism and try to address why "socialism" produces hundreds of billionaires.
Apparently, "it's fine because the proles have public transit and stuff." Perhaps magical thinking seems compelling if it is disguised in an expensive vocabulary and hiding behind many citations.
If the means of production is owned by the people, why would there be people with more money than others, let alone billions?
Uh, yes, it is an argument, whether or not you want to close your eyes to reality. Billionaires do not occur without individuals using concentrations of capital or power to extract large amounts of value from laborers. The wealth inequality in China is very present, due to the fact that it is capitalism.
You would do well to join the people capable of observing objective reality instead of scouring the web for essays that cite philosophers instead of data. That would require confronting your cognitive biases, though.
They're literally defending the existence of The People's Billionaires as proletarian liberation. They're a lost cause, like most tankies.
Totally agree. The essay they posted has some funny magical thinking if you want to skim through it for a laugh. "Billionaires are good actually because we need them to be like a sort of USB plug so we can link into capitalist economies. Anyway the state can execute them as a scapegoat if the need arises. Here's a few dozen quotes from philosophers. See? Still socialist."
As Mao also said, "let one hundred flowers bloom in social science and arts and let one hundred of view points be expressed in the field of science.", and then promptly jailed and murdered those who expressed themselves. Not sure he's the ideal champion of free thought.
...
????
You know. I imagine most tankies are just radicalised westerners.
But you my friend, I would be willing to bet you’re a chinese state sponsered keyboard warrior.
You might want to take up ol' sparrow killer on that advice yourself.......
Oh, you're closer to reality than I imagined. Ok, so the billionaires are receiving billions of dollars with whose means of production?
Workers who own the means opt to force billions in wealth they generated upon these unfortunate individuals who must act as lightning rods for criticism. Instead of distributing it amongst themselves or spending on infrastructure. Very realistic perspective, thank you.
I believe it isn't distributing the billions of yuan that are going to these individuals who own means of production, yes.
This argument chain was on whether or not the proles are empowered under Chinese capitalism (they aren't) not whether or not their standard of living is above $2/day.
Comparing to America is whataboutism but the numbers I am finding are under 0.25% US citizens below that extreme poverty level in 2020 compared to 0.7% Chinese citizens in 2015.
Sus when you look at real numbers instead of just patting yourself on the back with citations that agree with you.
That's literally what a town hall style meeting is. Every Western democracy does that. It's the bare fucking minimum. It's very strange that you're treating that as radical or an innovation.
"Chinese billionaires are just really well paid proletarians" said no one sane ever.
Yup, no one said it
As your comrade above said: "...if you had read the assigned essay you would know...."